Thursday, 1 December 2011

"Take Fahrenheit 451. You’re dealing with book burning, a very serious subject. You’ve got to be careful you don’t start lecturing people. So you put your story a few years into the future and you invent a fireman who has been burning books instead of putting out fires—which is a grand idea in itself—and you start him on the adventure of discovering that maybe books shouldn’t be burned. He reads his first book. He falls in love. And then you send him out into the world to change his life. It’s a great suspense story, and locked into it is this great truth you want to tell, without pontificating."
— Ray Bradbury in an interview to Paris Review, in 2010 (check it out at www.theparisreview.org)

Fahrenheit 451, the classic science fiction by Ray Bradbury, is now available as an ebook for the first time, Simon & Schuster announced on November 29. The New York-based publisher has been the hardcover publisher of Fahrenheit 451 since it was first published in 1953.

The publication in digital form comes as part of a new publishing agreement that includes all English language print and digital formats of Fahrenheit 451 in North America, and also includes English language mass market rights in North America to Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, Simon & Schuster said in a press release.

Following the release of the ebook edition of Fahrenheit 451, Simon & Schuster will also publish a trade paperback edition in January 2012. The mass market editions of The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man will go on sale in March 2012.

"It’s a rare and wonderful opportunity to continue our relationship with this beloved and canonical author and to bring his works to a new generation of readers and in new formats," said Jonathan Karp.

Having sold over 10 million copies since its original publication, Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most famous and widely-read novels in American history, and has never been out of print. It has been translated into 33 languages and published in 38 countries.